Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) type-1 and type-2 are human pathogens that cause primary, latent, and recurrent infections. HSV infection has various clinical manifestations including genital herpes, oral-facial infections, cutaneous and ocular infections, herpes encephalitis, neonatal herpes and erythema multiforme. HSV-1 predominantly causes herpes labialis and HSV-2 causes herpes vulvovaginitis. Genital HSV infection is a sexually transmitted disease that is prevalent worldwide and is becoming an increasingly important public health issue. There has been a 30% increase in the incidence of sexually transmitted HSV infections over the last two decades in the United States alone. Detection of HSV during pregnancy is very important since exposure of the neonate during delivery could result in infection. HSV infection is commonly treated using anti-viral agents such as acyclovir, valacyclovir or famciclovir.
Common methods of detection of HSV infection include serological testing, viral culture or polymerase chain reaction (PCR) followed by microtiter plate detection (Riley, 1998). These assays are time consuming and are not amenable to the rapid diagnosis and treatment of HSV infected individuals. An assay which is faster, less labor intensive and comparable in sensitivity to microtiter plate based assays is desirable.